Hitz was awesome and still is (I own PRO and the regular game) and yes, it is Midway. Now to ways that EA has sucked the fun out of this series (coming from a person that plays both roller and ice hockey IN REAL LIFE): 1. Goalies (professional) lets in too many eazy goals. 2. Every year there is one spot where you can score every time you shoot. 3. DB's that cheat in multiplayer. 4. massive lag or freeze 5. stupid AI (especially those that will pass the puck with a wide open net) 6. How playing against the CPU and you're kicking butt how your team has a complete mental lapse or the other team gets sterroids and that 10 goal lead you now are down by one.
And last but not least #7: EA CHEATS!!!!! One year I was playing (forgot what year it was) and I paused it just outta curiosity because I was kicking butt and there was NO WAY IN HECK they could come back. Amazingly they had 7 players on the ice and the 6th forward could not be touched and scored all the time. I even used the hack/****/check/trip/beat the living daylights out of this guy buttons but he would not budge, and the goalie didn't do anything. I called EA and they said it was my system (even though I tried it on other systems and it happened as well.)
1. Goalies are something they've been working on emphatically over the past few years and they are getting quite a bit more realistic. I think the problem is that when they added the dual-stick controls a few years back, they didn't realize that the goalies would need to be made quite a bit better because of the new shooting abilities that came with the DSC. I'm giving them credit on this one. They made them "live" last year (perhaps a bit
too live, with all the goalie interference calls) and apparently they're giving them shitloads of new save animations and capabilities. It's not like they aren't trying. (I will admit, the EASHL goalies should be much better)
2. There's
no way for them to be able to really fix the one spot type of glitches without a loooong beta, which is basically what the lifespan of the game is. They do their best to fix them when they get bad, and they're really only horrible in:
A) HUT, when the other guy stacks his team with players with 99 hands and shooting and
B) EASHL when the other guys basically do the same thing with their pro
3. Define cheating. If they're actually glitching or modding, that's one thing. If they're just exploiting a certain shot then it's not really
cheating. I agree that they
are DB's though.
4. This never really happens to me. Occasionally I'll lose my connection to the EA servers, but not often enough to get pissed about. Very occasional lag in EASHL.
5. Again, the only place this really gets to me is in EASHL. The AI defensemen are borderline retarded and can't do ****. Probably because all the AI players in EASHL start as 64 OVR's for some stupid reason. In other modes, I can manipulate them just fine. You just have to figure out what they're capable of (more then you're probably willing to give them credit for) and use it to your advantage. I've seen them demoing the new AI, and it looks worlds better from bot skater and goalie perspectives. Player will now be aware of everybody's position on the ice, not just where the puck is, apparently.
6. This has never once happened to me, but I don't often play against the computer unless I'm in BAP, and then it's just an absolute gong show for yours truly.
7. I've had something like that happen to me once. Reminds me of last year when one team would have 2 goalies in HUT for some reason. Nothing as bad as what you described though.
My point is, they're clearly trying, and the game isn't bad in the first place the way I look at it. It's pretty realistic when you step back and realize that its a video game, and that Hockey is probably one of the harder sports to make a realistic game out of. Sure there's been times when I've gotten frustrated by numerous things in it (particularly the **** in EASHL that don't play hockey, they merely cherry pick and pull ridiculous dangles and curve-shots), but I'll never swear it off or anything.